


Reunion

by Shannon-Kind (Shannon_Kind)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Castiel Has Aspergers, Crack, Hacker!Dean, M/M, Mechanic!Cas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 08:29:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10918113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shannon_Kind/pseuds/Shannon-Kind
Summary: Honestly, if his “bestie” Charlie hadn’t been in charge of the high school reunion, Cas wouldn’t have gone. He wasn’t exactly known for being his best in social situations. Besides, he might see Dean Winchester, his high school crush, again.Or-The kind of fic you come up with when you hear that "Penetration Tester" is a real job title.





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnonAnton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonAnton/gifts).



> Dedicated to AnonAnton for discovering there's such a thing as Dean's job title, which made me laugh inappropriately.

Cas looked himself over in his best friend’s full length mirror and sighed. “Come on, Castiel,” Charlie called from the other room. “You’re going to be late for your date.”

He slid on the suit jacket and stepped out of her bedroom. “Balthazar is not my date, Charlie.” She looked great in her bright pink dress with the gold embroidery on it. She did a little turn for him, flaring out the A line skirt and laughing.

“Well, you’re the one that put him down as your plus one for tonight, not me.” She looked down and noticed the blue tie crushed in his fist. “Come here, let me help you put that on.”

Cas moved half a step back before realizing what he was doing and relaxing. “I’ll put it on at the reunion. It feels like it’s strangling me.”

She booped his nose. “Alright. But don’t forget. We’re very fancy, I know, I was on the committee.”

Cas rolled his eyes and grabbed his trench coat as Charlie led him downstairs and out the apartment door to her yellow hatchback. “Yes, I know. You’ve told me about a thousand times. Are you sure I have to go?”

She turned back to him when she reached the car and gave him a soft smile. “Please? I vetted the playlist so there won’t be big volume changes, and I made sure they’d have food you’ll eat at the buffet—”

“Not just bread and butter?” he asked, even though they’d been over this before.

“Nope. You’ll be good. And no strobe lights or disco balls or anything like that. You got your ear plugs?” Cas patted his jacket pocket, then put the trench on over it. “It’s not even cold out, Cas,” she said despairingly.

“It’s comfortable,” he told her, glaring over the roof of the car. She tried to stare him down for a minute. But Cas could outstare a cat.

“Fine,” she said. “It’s very Constantine.”

Cas shrugged, thinking it over. Constantine’s moral compass was a little off. “I prefer to think of it as more Doctor Who.”

She looked appalled for a minute, but never said why. Instead she just said, “In that case, it’s very Tennant. Now let’s go meet your date so he doesn’t have to stand around alone too long.”

Cas nodded as he slipped into the car. “You promised me extra experience points in our next session for this,” he reminded her.

“Duly noted, Crukas Shieldheart. If I’d have known using my powers as Dungeon Master would get you to do things, I’d have tried it years ago.”

o0o

“Cassie!” Balthazar yelled across the parking lot, sauntering over and pulling Castiel into a bone-crushing hug. Some days Castiel wasn’t sure why he put up with Balthazar. And then he reached down and squeezed Cas’s hand, leaning over to whisper in his ear, “Let’s go make them all terribly jealous. You’ve got this, Cassie.” Sometimes Cas wondered why he and Baltazar never got together. Then he remembered that Balthazar would flirt with anything with at least one working appendage. Come to think of it, just because Castiel had never seen him flirt with a quadriplegic, didn’t mean he wouldn’t.

Balthazar’s hand was solid and reassuring in Castiel’s. He was not dressed up in an uncomfortable suit, but instead had on a black V neck shirt and a pair of slacks, it almost looked like he was going out clubbing. It also looked a lot more comfortable than the suit. Charlie had tried to insist his suit was too big when he bought it, but everything else felt stifling. Balthazar released his hand and slung an arm around Castiel’s shoulder, ushering him into the hall where the reunion was being held.

Castiel was grateful that Balthazar gave him a minute to adjust to the wall of sound created by his former classmates. Maybe he should have gotten there earlier, let himself get used to the place empty before it filled up. School was always like that, too loud, too close. He liked his job now, buried in the cars, instead of people. And the clothes were a lot more comfortable. He felt Balthazar guiding him to the sign in table, apparently cool down time was over already.

He found his nametag and table without too much difficulty. Everyone seemed…fake. Overly friendly. They were never that friendly in high school. And all the questions. “What do you do now?” “Is this your husband Castiel, he’s so handsome?” “How much are you worth?” “You mean *you* own Shieldheart Restorations? My cousin had a car done there.” He didn’t care about the money. Hell, Charlie ran that end of the business. He just worked on the cars.

Charlie bumped into him during a tense conversation with Abby, a former lacrosse player who’d grown impossibly tall, or maybe it was just the stilettos. She was eyeing Balthazar like a piece of meat. “Sorry, gotta pull him away,” Charlie sing-songed. “Gay business.” He didn’t need to look to know Abby was giving a disgusted look. He felt Balthazar turn to come with them, but for some reason, Charlie waved him to stay where he was. “How you doing, Cas? Going strong? Got your sonic screwdriver on you?”

“You told me not to bring it,” he teased. She frowned for a second, but it cleared right up into a grin.

“Did you check out the panic room yet?”

“I told you not to call it that.”

Charlie put her hands on her hips, stopping short. “Well what am I supposed to call it? Cool down space doesn’t have quite the same ring to it twenty years out of high school. And I made sure we had one special!”

Cas shook his head in fond exasperation. “Please show me your ‘panic room,’ Charlie,” he said, raising his fingers in air quotes.

She grabbed him by the hand and led him through a hallway to a room marked private. “This isn’t only for you,” she said, “but I can’t disclose who else might need it. But it’s quiet, private, and has a dimmer switch so you can turn the light down.” She opened the door revealing…well, an empty room. It was just a little bigger than a closet, and there were some beanbag chairs on the floor. Trust Charlie to decorate with beanbag chairs. “You sure you’re good?” she asked.

“I’m good,” he said. “Your party is great.”

She kissed him on the cheek. “Of course,” she said breezily. But he knew she’d been worried about it for months.

And then she was gone, leaving Castiel stranded with no Charlie, and no Balthazar. He contemplated waiting out the rest of the party in the back hallway, but Charlie would never let him live it down. Someone bumped into him. He heard the cursory “Sorry,” and turned to say it was okay, but the words got stuck in his throat as he found himself staring up into the candy apple green eyes of Dean Winchester. That was a name he had tried not to think about in a long time.

“Hey! Cas! I’m glad you made it out. How are you, man?” His voice was deeper than Castiel remembered, but he fell back into the same softer speech patterns he’d always reserved for Castiel when they were still friends.

“I’m well, Dean. How are you?” Try as he might, Castiel couldn’t tear himself away from Dean’s eyes. The pain of Dean ignoring him the second half of senior year still burned strong, but he wanted this, he’d wanted it for years.

“Good, Cas. Real good. I was hoping I’d see you here. I wanted to apologize. That last conversation we had…”

“The one where you told me you were bi?”

He watched Dean’s face redden, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah. It was uhm… you were the first person I came out to.”

Cas nodded. “You told me that.”

“Yeah, but uhm… I got home that night, and my dad started talking about this gay couple from work, and it was… You know what? I don’t want to talk about my dad. I made the choice, right? The fallout is I started ignoring you, and I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

Cas nodded again. Unsure what to say. The confession was disjointed and confusing. He needed more information to process it, but it wouldn’t happen, not here surrounded by so many people.

He didn’t realize that Dean had taken his arm and led him back to his table until he noticed how full the room was. It was loud again, but not unbearably so.

“So…what do you do now, Cas? Software designer? App developer? God I remember how much you loved computers.”

Cas tried not to blush, but he wasn’t sure if he was successful. “I own Sheildheart Restoration. Charlie helps with the business side, I just do the cars and the bikes.”

Dean’s jaw dropped. “I’ve heard of that place! That’s so wild! I always wanted to be a mechanic growing up.”

“I know Dean,” Cas said, risking a small smile. “You and I used to work outside on your dad’s car. You taught me how challenging they could be, but how relaxing they could be too.”

“Oh,” Dean said. It came out as a breathy whisper. “Right. I remember. That was… that was nice. I used to miss that.”

A firm hand closed over Castiel’s shoulder, but it was familiar. “Balthazar,” he said with a smile.

“Oh, is this your…” Dean started. “Hi, I’m Dean. Winchester. You’re a lucky man, Mr…”

Balthazar’s smile was downright predatory. “Oh yes I am, Mr. Winchester. Because the girl’s lacrosse team has decided to team up for a menage a … what’s French for twelve? Or I guess thirteen with me.” He looked at Cas. “Cassie, the girls in your school, I know you don’t look that way, but they have stayed in shape wonderfully. I plan on fully exploring their exercise program.” He looked back at Dean. “Of course, I have time to kick your ass first, if you’re bothering my boy here.”

Even though Dean had several inches on Balthazar, he took a step back. “No, not bothering. Right Cas? I mean, if I am I can leave, but no ass kicking necessary.”

“You’re fine Dean,” Cas said softly. “Go enjoy the party, Balthazar. I’ll text you if I need to leave.” With a kiss on each of Castiel’s cheeks, something he’d never quite get used to, Balthazar disappeared into the crowd.

The silence that followed was tense and long. “So what do you do, Dean?” he finally asked to fill the silence.

“Oh, I’m a penetration tester now.”

There was no way…did Dean just come out and say he was a sex worker? Not that he wasn’t attractive enough, but still… How could Cas put this gently? “I don’t know what that entails, exactly.”

“Oh, well you know,” Dean said, a gleam in his eye that might have meant he was joking, but sometimes used to just mean he was really excited about something. “I look for holes that want to be exploited a little, probe them for a bit to find out the best angle of insertion, and then just basically go at them hard and fast.”

“Is this…girls or boys?”

“Well, it’s whoever pays me, but I’m sure you know as well as I do that it’s usually the guys that have the kind of money for these services.”

Ok. So Dean Winchester, Castiel’s ex-crush, was a bisexual hooker. And a top apparently. If Castiel wasn’t so appalled by his gall that might have made him perk up a little.

“Cas…” Dean said softly, “I’m shitting with you. It means I’m a hacker, companies call me up to test if their systems could survive an attack.”

Oh. “Oh!” Castiel frowned. “What do you even know about computers?”

Dean smiled, resting his hand tentatively on Cas’s shoulder. When Cas didn’t shake him off, he let it lay a little more solidly. “Castiel Novak, I had a crush on you since the third grade, and they were all you ever talked about. I hung on your every word for a while there. There was no way I wouldn’t pick computing up.”

“You had a crush on me?”

“You didn’t know? I thought everyone knew. That’s why I had to stay away from you. It was getting too hard to fight.”

“I missed you,” Cas whispers, hoping that Dean wouldn’t hear.

“I missed you, too. I always wanted…”

“What?” Cas says, staring into Dean’s eyes again.

“I mean, I knew you wouldn’t be my first, but I wanted you to be my first guy, you know? And it just… Forget it. This is a great party.”

“Charlie’s on the committee,” Cas said absently. Then “Would you still want to?”

“Want to what?”

Taking a deep breath, Cas tried “Probe my hole?” He felt breathless, but he’d gotten it out.

Dean smiled. “I’d still be willing to probe your hole, if you’re interested.” Cas nodded and grabbed Dean’s hand. He never in a million years thought he’d be doing this at the high school reunion. He’d have to thank Charlie for the “panic room” later. Maybe after he cleaned it.

o0o

Charlie and Balthazar stood side by side watching Castiel Novak drag Dean Winchester down the hall. It was about damned time. They exchanged a high five.

“A well executed battle plan, Dungeon Master,” Balthazar said. “But if you’ll excuse me, I wasn’t lying about the lacrosse team, and I think they’re ready to play.


End file.
